16/03/2007
NEWS STORY
The 2007 Formula One season got underway today with the first practice sessions for the Australian GP. Kakuzi Nakajima ran with Alex Wurz in the morning session, with the young Japanese driver recording a highly creditable 6th fastest time on his debut. Nico and Alex had a productive second session as set-up direction for tomorrow's qualifying began to take direction.
Alex Wurz: In the morning everyone had to deal with the wet and changing conditions, but the afternoon was a bit better. At the beginning of the session I was driving a little carefully, as I hadn't found a balance on the car, but towards the end with my long run it was improving a lot. We still have to optimise our package, so from a driving point of view, I will be able to attack more.
Nico Rosberg: It was a pretty interesting session this afternoon. We really progressed very well after a slow start, but took our time and made good improvements, which is great. We eventually found some good set-up direction despite making some quite big changes. Like everybody else, we were trying tyres and with all the weather changes, the situation was not entirely clear and making our tyre choices will not be the easiest decision.
Kazuki Nakajima: At the start the track was really wet, so it was a little bit difficult out there for me. We started with the extreme wet tyre for the first 15 laps or so, but I didn't really get the opportunity to set a good lap time. Generally the car was pretty good whether it was wet or dry. Finally in the dry conditions late in the session everything was right to set a good lap time and in fact, I had some traffic in the last lap, so I might have been able to go even quicker. I didn't start out today expecting too much in my first official practice, but I was pleased with how it went.
Sam Michael, Technical Director: It was a busy pair of sessions today affected by the variable weather, but we collected plenty of information for tomorrow and Sunday. All three drivers did a good job and worked away on the set-up and we have found some good direction with the car, particularly in the second session. We've got more work to do tonight, but it was a reasonable first day. We had no systems problems with the cars.
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